Liberties of 21 inmates revoked after Anne Faber report

Minister Sander Dekker for Legal Protection is taking measures after a damaging report from the Dutch Safety Board on the case surrounding the rape and murder of 25-year-old Anne Faber. The first step he took was to withdraw certain freedoms from 21 prisoners after an initial screening, NU.nl reports.

According to the Dutch Safety Board report released on Thursday, the clinic Anne Faber's murderer Michael P. was transferred to for the final part of his prison sentence never did a risk assessment on the man and therefore granted him freedoms and liberties without knowing what danger he posed to the environment he was in. Dekker therefore revoked the freedoms of eight prisoners for whom there was no "structured risk assessment', he said on Thursday.

The freedoms of the other 13 prisoners were withdrawn because they are not yet in the "final phase of their prison sentence" and should never have been given these freedoms in the first place, Dekker said. 

Dekker is also making it mandatory that all prisoners who are transferred from a prison to a clinic fall under the supervision of the probation service. The Safety Board report also mentioned that the probation service was insufficiently involved in the freedoms P. was granted - he was allowed to leave the clinic unsupervised. 

P. was transferred from the prison in Vught to the FPA Utrecht clinic in Den Dolder in January 2017, to serve the last part of an 11 year long prison sentence he received in 2012 for raping two minor girls. The intent was that he be prepared for his return to society. In September of that year, while he was still a patient in the clinic, P. came across Anne Faber while riding on his scooter. He raped her, killed her and hid her body. The 25-year-old woman's body was found nearly two weeks later, after P. told the police where to look.

The man was sentenced to 28 years in prison with institutionalized psychiatric treatment. The case is currently under appeal.